Sack of Rome by the Gauls
A Gallic army destroyed a Roman force at the Allia and sacked the city around 390 BC. The Senones under Brennus had crossed the Apennines and besieged Clusium, which appealed to Rome. Rome sent three ambassadors of the Fabian family, who broke every rule of diplomatic conduct by joining the fighting and killing a Gallic chief — and were then elected military tribunes rather than surrendered, which is what the Gauls demanded. They marched on Rome instead. The Roman army met them on the Allia, eleven miles north, and was destroyed. The date, 18 July, was marked in the calendar as unlucky for centuries afterwards. The city was almost undefended. Most of the population fled; a garrison held the Capitol; and Livy has the elderly senators sitting in their robes in the Forum waiting, until a Gaul stroked one's beard and was struck with an ivory staff. The Gauls held the city for about seven months. The Capitol survived a night attack when the sacred geese of Juno raised the alarm. Rome bought them off with a thousand pounds of gold, and when the Romans objected that the weights were false, Brennus threw his sword onto the scale and said woe to the vanquished. Almost all of Rome's records burned, which is why the earlier history is unreliable. Rome then rebuilt without a plan, walled itself in stone, and reformed the army — and spent the next century conquering Italy. Romans dated a specific fear from it — the tumultus Gallicus, an emergency in which every exemption from service was suspended — and it lasted until Caesar conquered Gaul three centuries later.
- Category: Military
